Krugman Again

Now that the times has decided to end "Times Select," I suppose I can once more indulge in guilt-free linking to Krugman columns. Last Friday's column was his best work in a good while. In it, he outlines not only the new Inside-the-Oil-Industry evidence of failure in Iraq, but the first intelligent explanation for the bungler-in-chief's new willingness to trot out the latest in a long series of revisionist Vietnam analogies. I recently had occasion to read a rather good book on this subject by a fellow named Bruce Franklin, a short review of which can be found here. In essence, Franklin tells the story of the successful political and media campaign to refashion Vietnam as both a war in which the North Vietnamese were the violent agressors, but worse, in which American defeat [whatever that might mean in this context] is explained by an evil domestic empire of liberal reporters and spitting, violent, anti-war activists. Kudos to Krugman for connecting the dots.